Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | FICTION MAR | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
A family is torn apart by fierce belief and private longing in this unprecedented journey deep inside the most insular Hasidic sect, the Satmar.
In 1939, five-year-old Josef witnesses the murder of his family by the Romanian Iron Guard. He is taken in by a Gentile maid, who raises him as her own son. Five years later, Josef rescues a young girl, Mila, whose parents are killed in the wake of Nazi deportations. Josef helps Mila find safety with Zalman Stern, a leader in the Satmar community, in whose home Mila is raised as a sister to Zalman's daughter, Atara. The two girls form a fierce bond, but as they mature, Atara feels trapped by the restraints of Jewish fundamentalism, while Mila embraces her faith and her role as a respected young woman in her community. When Josef returns and chooses Mila to be his bride, she eagerly strives to be an ideal wife, but a desperate choice after ten years of childless marriage threatens to separate her from everything--and everyone--she cherishes.
A beautifully crafted, emotionally gripping story of what happens when unwavering love, unyielding law, and centuries of tradition collide, I Am Forbidden announces the arrival of an extraordinarily gifted new voice and opens a startling window on a world long closed to most of us, until now.
Author Notes
ANOUK MARKOVITS was raised in France in a Satmar home, breaking from the fold when she was nineteen to avoid an arranged marriage. She went on to receive a Bachelor of Science from Columbia University, a Master of Architecture from Harvard, and a PhD in Romance Studies from Cornell. Her first novel, Pur Coton, written in French, was published by Gallimard. I Am Forbidden is her English-language debut. She lives in New York with her husband.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this English-language debut, set around WWII, Markovits tells a story of miraculous happenings. A Hasidic boy, saved when his family is killed, in turn saves a girl whose family has tried to flee with their beloved rabbi. Returned to the remnants of the community, then separated, they reunite in Brooklyn, where the rabbi is rebuilding the Satmar community, replicating every tradition, ritual, and law of the old world. But miracles and rituals and laws-even when designed to bring followers closer to God-come at a price, and Markovits pays scrupulous attention to those as well. Tracing the Stern family from Transylvania to Paris and Brooklyn, she focuses on daughter Atara and adopted daughter Mila, closer than close, until Atara wants more than the Satmar world can offer. Atara leaves; Mila stays, desperately trying to accommodate belief and desire. When she comes up with a theological work-around, we not only sympathize but understand; it is, after all, no more tangled and self-serving than the explanation of how the rabbi made it out of Europe. Raised in a Satmar home, Markovits plays fair: the believers are not stupid; their harsh world has beauty. We dwellers in the modern world know what "should" happen, but Markovits shows why, for those in the other world, it's not that simple. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Orphaned during the Holocaust, two ultra-orthodox Jews bound by love and faith are driven apart by the same forces in a sensitive consideration of tradition and commitment. French-raised Markovits' English-language debut opens in Manhattan in 2005 with the meeting of two women: Atara, who, like the author, fled her Hasidic family to avoid an arranged marriage; and Judith, the granddaughter of Atara's adopted sister, burdened by a cataclysmic secret. Then the clock turns back to Transylvania in 1939, where Josef witnesses the murder of his family and is taken in by a Catholic farmer, and Mila is saved by Josef when her parents are murdered too. Rabbi Stern later rescues Josef and sends him to the U.S. while taking Mila into his own family. Stern's daughter Atara starts to question her father's beliefs and expectations, including limited education for women, and also researches a dark episode of Holocaust history involving Mila's parents and a revered Hasidic rabbi whose escape from Europe may have come at a very high price. When Mila and Josef marry, Atara abandons her family and disappears. The years pass but Mila doesn't conceive. Finally, when she does, desperate choices have been made by both husband and wife. Decades later, matters come full circle as Judith and Atara choose what matters most. Less a commercial family saga, more a sober, finely etched scrutiny of extreme belief set in a female context.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Markovits' sprawling novel chronicles family members' diverging generational journeys anchored by the laws of religion. In Transylvania, in 1944, five-year-old Mila Heller's parents are brutally killed. She is taken in by the family of Hasidic rabbi Zalman Stern and becomes close with the younger daughter, Atara. The family moves to Paris' Jewish quarter, where the children are raised under Zalman's strict religious observance. As teenagers, the girls are sent to a seminary, and while Mila's religious faith deepens, so does Atara's dream of freedom. At 17, Mila is engaged to Josef Lichtenstein, an orphan who witnessed the murders of his own parents. Meanwhile, when Atara learns that she is next to be married, she chooses an opposing path. Markovits then shifts the focus to Mila's adulthood in America, where she and Joseph experience their own struggle with the expectations of their faith and community. The saga culminates in 2005 in Manhattan, where long-held secrets jeopardize the core of the Sterns' identity. Markovits creates a vibrant, multilayered tale set within the conflicting obligations of faith and family.--Strauss, Leah Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
"I am forbidden, so are my children and my children's children, forbidden for ten generations male or female." With this opening line, Markovits immediately draws the reader in to a family saga of faith and long-hidden secrets, set among the Hasidic Jews of eastern Europe and spanning four generations. The story focuses on Atara, who rebels against the strict rules and rituals of her culture, and adopted sister Mila, who finds comfort and stability within the faith but struggles when she is unable to conceive a child. Raised in France, where she attended a religious seminary in lieu of high school, Markovits deftly weaves in copious information about Hasidic beliefs and the varieties of Jewish political thought during the 20th century while keeping the story intimate. Most important, she does not judge her characters but sympathizes with the human struggle in each, from Atara's rigidly devout Rebbe Zalman Stern, to Josef Lichtenstein, who can never quite forget the Christian woman who raised him as her own son during the war, to Atara herself, who thirsts for knowledge forbidden to her as a woman. VERDICT A stunning novel, the author's first in English; highly recommended.-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.